


finish line

by espressohno



Series: to sit in a library [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Established McKirk, M/M, Previous Jim/Gary, References to Drugs, but no actual drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6299719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressohno/pseuds/espressohno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part one of a series exploring the backstory of Jim's character in the universe for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6272059">this fic</a> which probably needs to be read in order for this to make sense</p>
            </blockquote>





	finish line

**Author's Note:**

> this is the fastest update i think i have ever done, so, huge thanks to all of you guys for leaving comments and kudos. and additional thanks to jj smooth for teaching me all about drugs and prison  
> also i don't have an estimate yet for how many of these i'll write, but hopefully enough that it all makes sense by the end.  
> 

Leonard said he would be getting home late, some sort of Tuesday night finance meeting that happened once a month, which Leonard had described that morning as  _ bureaucratic nonsense that could be easily done through an email so I don’t have to stare into the dead eyes of the corporate drones working down in accounting _ . Direct quote. 

Normally Jim would’ve been fine getting back to the apartment a few hours before Leonard, but he’d been having sort of a rough day already, and nobody else was on shift that he knew very well, and the idea of sitting around in the apartment alone sounded like a sad cherry on top of an already sad ice cream sundae. Jim needed attention, and noise, and whatever else would help him to remember that he was a living, functioning human being. 

He got off two stops early and walked through the busy street, full of coming and going dinner crowds and Tech students looking for bars that don’t card. It helped a little bit, to be surrounded by people. It helped him pull his mind back into the present moment, keep it from drifting off into nothing, which seemed to be the one thing that had remained from the year and a half he spent in prison. 

At one point Jim had ducked into a convenient store and accidentally spent fifteen minutes looking at the shelf of chocolate bars. He snapped out of it, started heading to the beer aisle, and then snapped out of it again and remembered that Leonard was about a week away from his one year sobriety chip at AA. He decided to buy chocolate after all. 

The weeknight crowds had started to thin when he was nearing home. Jim made himself blink faster as he pushed the doors open to the lobby, pressed the elevator button and waited. He didn’t know exactly how late it was but he hoped Leonard was home already, by some miracle. 

He stepped into the elevator, pushed the floor button and unwrapped a Hershey’s bar. 

“Did you take a detour or something?” Leonard called out from the bedroom after Jim opened the door and flopped onto the couch. Jim’s thoughts warmed at the sound of his stupid voice. Leonard was, arguably, the opposite of nothing, after all. 

“Yeah.” Jim threw another chocolate bar at him as he walked into his line of sight. Leonard fumbled to catch it. “How was the hell meeting?”

“Not bad. Some genius made a powerpoint this year. It cut the meeting down by like an hour.”

Leonard leaned over the back of the couch, looking on in amusement as Jim tried to turn over onto his back without getting up. Jim reached out a hand, grabbing onto Leonard’s forearm. He just needed to touch him, was all. He needed Leonard to be there and real and somehow still in love with him. 

“Are you doing okay, darlin’?” Leonard instinctively reached down to feel Jim’s forehead, his cheek, leaving his hand resting there. Jim tried to smile against the emptiness he’d been feeling all day. 

“I’ll be okay. In a little bit.”

Leonard didn’t look satisfied from that, but he had been surprisingly patient with Jim not wanting to share very much of his personal life yet. Jim knew that eventually there would be a point where Leonard would ask him outright. He wondered if he would ever actually be ready for that. 

“Someone came by the apartment while you were out just now.” Leonard’s voice lifted him out of his thoughts again, and Jim leaned into the hand on his cheek. 

“Why?”

“He said he was looking to check up on you or something. Said he was an old friend. Gary Mitchell.”

Jim felt the blood drain from his face.  

“Do you know him?” 

“Yes.” Jim breathed. He could hear Leonard hesitating and glanced back at him. It was probably clear that this was something personal, something from before, from the years that Jim always skipped over in conversations. Jim reached for Leonard’s hand on his face and pulled it away, curled their hands together absently over his chest. 

“Is he from-”

“Yes.”

 

***

 

_ five years earlier _

 

“Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up.” Jim chanted into the phone, and then, “Fuck!” 

Gary’s voicemail inbox was full already. Jim must have called  _ that many times _ already. 

He had given him directions to a motel just near the edge of Atlanta, one where nobody would think to look for him. At least, that’s what he told Jim, that he would be perfectly safe, that he only had to sit on the drugs for one more night. In the morning he would check out of the hotel. He had a bus ticket to take him to Savannah, and then Gary would pick up his luggage, and then he was done, there was no more. 

“It’s the final stretch. You can see the end. So there’s nothing to worry about.” Gary had said, “I’ll see you in Savannah and then you’re done.” 

Gary kissed him one last time before Jim went through security. He spent the flight from

Indianapolis to Atlanta with his forehead against the window, fully convinced that at any moment, someone could take one look at him and know what he was doing. 

And then he made it to Atlanta. He passed hundreds of people who didn’t look twice at him, and it got easier. He only had one night, and then Savannah, the finish line. He could see it.

Until two police cars pulled into the motel parking lot a little after midnight. 

Jim threw his phone against the wall, sat down heavily onto the dusty motel bed. If he made a run for it now, the people Gary was working for, maybe even Gary himself, would track him down and kill him for not finishing the job. If he stayed here, he went to prison, and,  _ he was no fucking law expert _ , that could be good as dead anyway. 

Five minutes later, an officer kicked the door open to find a twenty-two year old college dropout, sitting on the bed, shaking, with two suitcases full of ketamine on the floor on either side of him. 

Jim’s mind was far gone by the time they got to him. The sound, the sight, the feeling of nothing covered up his miranda rights, and any memory he could’ve had of being handcuffed and ducked into a police car. He could never remember if he had managed to fall asleep in the holding cell, or if he had just sat there, motionless, for eight hours. 

They brought him to the phone the next morning. Gary finally picked up after the first ring, and Jim immediately burst into tears. 

_ I’m gonna die. I can’t do it. I’m gonna die.  _ Was the only thing he could really say, and he probably said it at least five times. 

“You’re not going to die.” Gary said calmly, and Jim only cried harder, because why the  _ fuck _ was Gary being calm. Jim had just been  _ fucking arrested _ . 

“They found everything. I don’t know what they’re gonna do to me.” He felt like his throat was being cut off, it was so difficult to breathe.

“Listen, baby-”

“Don’t call me that!” Jim yelled. 

“Jim, listen to me. You’re not going to die.”

“Gary, the suitcases-”

“Shut up. Shut the hell up. They’re listening to this.”

“What do I do. Gary. What do I do. Tell me what to do.” He sobbed, trying to rub the tears out of his eyes fast enough that they didn’t blind him. It only made his skin feel raw. 

“Be honest. Tell them what you know. Tell the truth.” Gary said, and Jim could hear it in his voice that he expected him to do the exact opposite. He took a shaky breath. 

“I’m scared. I’m fucking scared.”

Gary sighed, as if he had more important things he could be doing than utilizing his boyfriend’s  _ one phone call _ before he was thrown in prison. 

“You’ll be fine.”

“Gary, I love you. I love you so much.”

“Just don’t be stupid, alright?” Was all Gary had to say before he hung up. 

Jim was still shaking, still crying as they led him back to the holding cell. An hour ago he had wanted to hear Gary’s voice more than anything in the world, because he thought that it would somehow make everything better. He wanted to know that he would be okay, that they would get him out of here _ ,  _ because  _ he hadn’t fucking done anything _ . 

The longer he sat alone in that cell, the more he started to realize that nobody was coming for him. 


End file.
